


Peace is Known

by sroesch



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-17
Updated: 2020-05-17
Packaged: 2021-03-03 02:47:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 812
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24227590
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sroesch/pseuds/sroesch
Summary: After centuries, Merlin finds peace.
Relationships: Merlin/Arthur Pendragon (Merlin)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 16





	Peace is Known

He tried to count the years since it happened. 1,000? 2,000? Meet in the middle, call it one and a half.

One and a half thousand years since he’d last seen his king. Since he’d pulled his lord’s red cloak around his broad, metal-clad shoulders and closed the gold clasps loosely around his pale neck. Since he placed flowers and leaves in a wood boat forged by magic and laid his master’s fresh corpse into its bed. Since he’d pressed his lips to his forehead, tickled by golden hair, and fell the transport out of his white knuckles. That day, unlike the ones that had followed, was etched into his brain like a brand on a slave. There, forevermore.

Mocking him.

A constant reminder of his failure, his loss. A constant reminder of him, he who the man staring into the eyes of a stranger at this moment could and will never have.

He scowls into the mirror.

_Don’t look at me like that. Don’t you dare. You disgrace. You utter, invaluable disgrace. You deserved that river, not him. You deserved that fate. You abomination, you. All your magic and you couldn’t save the one person that mattered. And now look at the world, this wretched world. You caused this, you insolent fool, and you_ must _pay._

And he had tried. He had tried to pay the debt he owed with nothing short of his life. But blades laced with poison slicing through his neck wrung by rope dangling from a height that makes even God tremble would not let him pay. He could not die, and that was the worst penance he could imagine. To be forced to live while everyone he had ever loved is dead because of him. But alas, there was one thing he had not tried yet. One thing that was so beyond the bounds of what was imaginable at his birth that the magic he was forged with could not possibly comprehend how to combat it and force him to keep living.

Boring into his own soul through worn blue eyes, a steady hand presses cool, dark metal to his temple. His brow furrowed with determination, lips pursed with fizzling hope.

Long pale fingers shift slightly a few times over, searching for the most comfortable grip on the short, boxed end of the machine. With every second that passes, a name and the sins he committed against them flash through his head.

Morgana.

Uther.

Elyan.

Gwen.

Leon.

Percival.

Gauis.

Gwaine.

Mother.

Father.

Arthur. Forsaken, every one of them, at his hand. As such, he shall too.

Hesitating only once out of fear of disappointment, Merlin nearly caves his right temple in as he pushes the barrel close so there is no chance the bullet will miss and he pulls the jet black trigger, prayers wet on his lips. Horrid ringing follows a great crack, blood spilling down his ear and neck, caking his overgrown locks in liquid confirmation of his greatest desire: a mortal wound too complex and advanced for his stunted magic to understand.

See, Merlin had isolated himself once he realized, thanks to an early version of an automobile, that his magic can only defend him against what it has been given time to understand. Since cars are similar to carriages, they could not kill him. Pills worked in the same way, too similar to the tablets and potions the physicians of old concocted. Guns, however, were an unprecedented invention. Not similar enough to archery nor catapults to be combatted but simple enough to operate on limited knowledge.

Merlin had had to travel a great distance, across one of the seven seas, to obtain one without having to learn a great deal about them (something he learned from a passing conversation on one of his journeys between lands). So here he stands, in the bathroom of a grand inn in the halfway jungle, life draining out of him like sand. The euphoria he feels at his accomplishment is contradicted by the slow, grinding pain making its way through his body, but only slightly.

“I will hold you again, my lord. I have been saved. My love, oh my love.”

With each word, he falls faster into the arms of the Holy, blinding white creeping into the corners of his eyes, encompassing the fading blue.

_King Arthur, I will find you in Heaven. Meet me at the tree, where the apple condemned us. It is only fitting._

Fading, falling, deeper and deeper. A smile, one final smile, mangles his chapped lips, now coated red. His lungs heave one final breath, one awful, stuttering creak. And as they do, as the last of the great sorcerer’s life escapes him and the angels carry him to Heaven like he carried his love to the river, a horrible shout rips through his numbing head.

“I live!”


End file.
